Mother, artist, teacher, education activist, former NJ State Legislature candidate, that teacher in that Chris Christie You Tube video, writing about education, poverty, politics, women's issues, social justice and living in a world gone strange.

Monday, March 31, 2014

From the moment he was sworn in four years ago, Gov.
Christie has been on a personal jihad against public education, unions and
teachers. Labeling us “greedy” and “selfish”, and our apartheid schools in
high-poverty districts as “failure
factories”, he’s done everything possible to brainwash the general public
into thinking our schools are overrun with bad teachers who must be held accountable.

He succeeded in getting a new evaluation system passed (my
district uses Danielson)* that now tracks every pencil stroke of a student
against their teacher. No stone is left unturned as administrators evaluate
everything from how a teacher greets her students at the door, to whether
students are able to solve their own social problems. And forget about
expecting to be found ‘highly effective’ (a score of 4 on a 1-4 scale). Every
teacher in New Jersey has been spoon-fed the mantra, “live in 3; vacation in
4”. To be highly effective, students pretty much have to teach themselves and
solve their own problems. So, if you are a highly effective teacher, you
essentially teach yourself into obsolescence. And yea, that’s totally
reasonable, especially with kindergarteners.

Oh Charlotte, what have you done?

But no matter how hard teachers are trained in the new
evaluation system, there are some things in our students’ lives that are simply
beyond our control; that not even the best teacher in the world can fix.

WE CAN’T STUFF KNOWLEDGE INTO KIDS’ HEADS WHEN THEIR HOME LIVES
ARE DYSFUNCTIONAL!

But for no-excuses Christie, that’s no excuse. Teachers must
be held accountable! It’s our fault kids struggle to learn because they’re
poor. It’s our fault their parents are going through a bitter divorce that
keeps them up at night with worry. It’s our fault they have an undiagnosed
learning disability. If we can just hold teachers to unreasonable standards,
slash their budgets, and test kids til their brains turn to Jello, we will banish those bad teachers once
and for all!

And while Gov. Christie gets to hire his staff, I, on the
other hand, have no choice which students I teach. I MUST take them all
regardless of what baggage they bring with them, and yet I MUST be held
accountable for their academic performance.

Well, those who live by the accountability sword will die by
the accountability sword. Gov. Christie unleashed the accountability monster,
so it’s time for him to have a taste of his own medicine: he must be held
accountable for Bridgegate.

Gov. Christie, you are accountable to the people of New
Jersey for surrounding yourself with a bunch of —(to use a word you admitted
your mother used, and you
called Assemblyman Reed Gusciora)—‘numbnuts’.

You are accountable to the people of New Jersey for hiring
not one… not two… not three… but four incompetents. Talk about a failure
factory! You hired them. You created a work environment that fostered this type
of behavior. That speaks volumes about your ability not only to lead a state
but—heaven forbid—a nation. I can just see it:

“Hey, Mr. President, that despot dictator won’t back down, so
we created some traffic problems on his border with some Bradleys.”

It doesn’t matter that you looked at the camera all puppy
dog-eyed and sad and told Diane
Sawyer,

“I’m certainly disappointed in myself that I wasn’t able to
pick up these traits in these people. I’m disappointed in myself that I didn’t
look closer, that I trusted too much.”

You are accountable.

It doesn’t matter that a bogus investigation, paid for with
$1 million of taxpayer money, exonerated you and slut-shamed
Bridget Anne Kelly. You, sir, are accountable for her actions. (Oh, and can I
deduct my portion of that $1 mil from my income taxes ‘cause I’d really like a
refund.)

You must be held accountable for the millions of people who were
late for work or school, and for the ambulance that could not answer a call in
a timely manner because of your poor judgment. Four people behaved horrendously
because of your poor judgment.

The buck stops with you, Governor. You can point your finger
all you want. You can spray yourself with Teflon all you want. You can
trash Bridget Kelly and deny being friends with David Wildstein all you want,
but they didn’t act in a vacuum.

‘I didn’t know’ is right up there with ‘the dog ate my
homework’. You are ineffective. You need to go.

* If anyone has a link to the Danielson rubric that shows
all the domains, please send me the link. I’ve only been able to find a PDF.

Sunday, March 30, 2014

I've been struggling to put words together to reflect on last Thursday's education march on Trenton. As a fledgling blogger, I sometimes find it easier to write about an event as a witness, but last week I was a participant. I was honored to be on a speakers list that included so many passionate voices for public education. And even more honored to speak to such a passionate, enthusiastic crowd. Hundreds of people—parents, students and teachers—braved the bitter cold and wind to make their voices heard.

We are all sick and tired of the lies being told about public education by people who can afford to send their children to the very best private schools in New Jersey: that our schools are 'failure factories', our teachers are 'lazy', and poverty doesn't matter. And no one hammered home that point better than Central High School Principal and Newark Mayoral Candidate, Ras Baraka.

I'll stop talking now. Sit back and watch this terrific video recap of the march by my friend and fellow teacher, Ronen Kaufman.

And remember...

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has. ~ Margaret Mead

Sunday, March 23, 2014

Thirteen years ago, after the horrific attacks of 9/11, the
Bush/Cheney/Condi triumvirate sold the nation on a war based on a lie: that
Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and was connected to the terror attacks.
Even after it was proven they didn’t have WMDs and the terrorists were Saudis—not
Iraqis—Bush and Company plowed on, squandering our budget surplus, putting
billions on the nation’s credit card in hopes of gaining control of Iraq’s oil
reserves, and sacrificing the lives of thousands of brave young men and women
in the process.

In 2011 I visited the Washington, DC office of the late Sen.
Frank Lautenberg—a WWII veteran—to talk to him about education policy. Outside
his office was a display called “Faces of the Fallen":

"... a memorial to the service members who lost their
lives in Afghanistan and Iraq. Begun in 2004, the memorial… consists of more
than 100 placards, each containing the pictures, names, ages, hometowns and
causes of death of service members who sacrificed their lives to serve our
country.” It was, to say the least, a moving and humbling tribute to so many
brave men and women who made the ultimate sacrifice for our country.

While President Bush was perpetrating that lie on a
shell-shocked nation, he was cooking up another one: failing students. More
recently accompanied by ‘bad teachers’, these two phrases have become the WMDs
of the war on public education. They have been manufactured and sold to the
general public by business people and elected officials—both Republican and
Democrat—in order to cash in on the $600 billion education industry despite the
fact that there is an enormous amount of data generated by the US government
and researchers from a variety of public and private enterprises that says the
problem in America isn’t public education, but poverty.

While President Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan
were wringing their hands over the US scores on the 2010 PISA (Program for International
Student Assessment), Diane Ravitch actually analyzed the data and debunked the Chicken Little myth:

“American students in schools with low poverty… had
scores that were equal to those of Shanghai and significantly better
than those of high-scoring Finland, the Republic of Korea, Canada, New Zealand,
Japan and Australia… the scores of students in low-poverty
schools in the United States are far higher than the international average,
higher even than the average for top-performing nations, and the scores decline
as poverty levels increase, as they do in all nations.” (Reign of
Error, p.65) (Emphasis mine.)

American schools are not 'failing', the sky is not falling, but the ability of many Americans to provide for their families is.

But why look at messy things like facts when rhetoric is so
much easier to sell and profit from? While school district budgets across the
country are being slashed, those same districts must come up with thousands,
and in some cases, millions of dollars to pay for technology and other upgrades
to prepare for the
onslaught of standardized testing despite no proof that it will improve
student learning!

As the assault on public education marches on, two glaring
ironies are emerging:

While ‘reformers’ push for more ‘accountability’, testing,
and standards for our kids, theirs go to elite
private schools with low student-teacher ratios, rich curriculums, shorter
school days and years, and no punitive accountability measures.

As educator/blogger Mercedes Schneider reports, the long overemphasis on standardized testing in other countries is backfiring
as they graduate more and more students who are excellent at test taking, but
who lack critical, creative, and higher order thinking skills: “Asian countries do better than European
and American schools because we are ‘examination hell’ countries,” said
Koji Kato, a professor emeritus of education at Tokyo’s Sophia
University. “There is more pressure to teach to the test. In my experience
in working with teachers the situation is becoming worse and worse.”

Be sure to read Schneider’s entire post. It’s a veritable
primer on the ultimate goal of education ‘reform’.

So again I ask: What will you do to help stem the tide of education ‘reform’? I know where
I’ll be on March 27th. I’ll be in Trenton with people from all
across the state fighting to take back our classrooms from profiteering
carpetbaggers. Please join us!

Thursday, March 20, 2014

Is it just me, or is everything marketed as ‘sexy’ these
days? Almost every bride on every bridal reality show (Ok, I admit it, I watch
them all!) wants to look sexy. (Whatever happened to classy?) Cell phones,
computers, paint colors, guns, food, tools, toothpaste and a zillion more products
are all marketed in some way, shape or form as sexy. I’ll bet somebody
somewhere thinks it’s a good idea to market shower caulk as sexy!

Along with “risqué” one of the definitions of sexy is
“excitingly appealing; glamorous, as in: a
sexy new car.” So although a commercial may not use the word ‘sexy’ in it,
the subliminal messaging is there nonetheless. Marketing experts know that the
key to opening consumer wallets is to offer the chance of an appealing,
glamorous (sexy) life along with their product.

So, what does all this have to do with education? In their
efforts to privatize public education and turn it into a multi-billion-dollar, for-profit
enterprise, education ‘reformers’ have to market and sell it in slick, messaging
that’s ‘excitingly appealing’, aka sexy! Public education advocate, Leonie
Haimson, one of the founders of Parents
Across America, and head of Class
Size Matters in NYC, has assembled a compendium
of reformy-speak buzzwords including:

“Wow!” you say, “They sound so excitingly appealing and
glamorous! Damn it, why isn’t my local public school doing this?? I WANT THIS FOR MY KIDS!!"

Now hold on a second. Before you go opening your mental
wallets to the education ‘reformies’, consider this from public school
teacher/blogger, Jersey
Jazzman, who also happens to be a doctoral student in educational theory,
organization and policy at Rutgers University (you know, an expert):

“[Education reformers] do not care that all of the research
points exactly AWAY from the solutions they propose. They do not care that it
is inherently contradictory to say ‘we don’t have the money’ and then fund
programs like vouchers that will further drain the state’s coffers. Nor do they
care that it’s illogical to say how much they value teachers while
simultaneously pushing to cut their pay.”

So, while ed ‘reformers’ are busy selling you that shiny new car, many veteran teachers have had it with the abuse, the
bullying and the blame. Far too many are retiring earlier than they had
originally planned. And with every experienced educator we lose, our students
lose years of experience. But that’s okay because waiting in the wings is a “catalytic”,
“innovative”, “bold”, “game changer” with absolutely no experience to take
their place!

You see, reformers don’t care if their plans work or not because this
is what really motivates them:

Yes, this is an actual slide from an actual education
‘reform’ presentation. The You Tube link is no longer available. Hmmm… wonder
why? Could it be that that video was so cringe-inducing (especially the part
where the presenter tells the audience he’s an education expert because he saw
the movie ‘Dangerous Minds’) that the blowback from the education community
shredded it to pieces?

Bashing teachers is a marketing tool, folks! It’s been
packaged and sold to the general public by politicians, billionaires and those
who do their bidding as part of a slick and sexy marketing campaign that
diverts attention away from the real problems facing New Jersey and the rest of
the US: poverty, staggering income inequality and the decline of the middle
class. Public education is a $600 billion industry, and corporations, certain ‘non-profits’
and Wall Street investors are hijacking it and making some beaucoup bucks at
the expense of hard-working education professionals—and your kids! Oh sure, they love to tell you it's all about the kids, but how many of them sat back and did absolutely nothing while Congress cut SNAP benefits?

New Jersey does not have an education problem of epidemic
proportions. We
consistently rank at or near the top in student achievement in the US. But
we do have about 200 apartheid schools in our inner cities, with high
concentrations of poor and/or minority students. They are not, as Gov. Christie
calls them, ‘failure
factories’. The teachers in those schools are working with a higher
concentration of students with special needs than those of schools in our wealthiest
suburbs, and like the dedicated staff in that hospital in my previous post, they are being blamed.

Do we have some bad teachers in our profession? Of course we
do—just like any other profession. And thankfully it’s now easier to remove
them from the classroom. But we also have bad elected officials, business
people and ‘edupreneures’ who have little to no education experience, but who
have boatloads of influence, money and power, and have sold the general public on
the hokum that teachers are responsible for all the ills of society. Unfortunately,
it’s not so easy to remove them
from power.

Think about it: who is a bigger threat to the welfare and
prosperity of New Jersey: a school teacher with a median income of $62K who is going to
work every day, providing for her family, trying to make a difference, or a
billionaire with a lot of political connections and a nose for venture capitalism
who wants to privatize public education without a shred
of evidence it will benefit children?

It’s time to stop blaming teachers! It’s time to stand up!
Speak out! Fight back! Come to Trenton on March 27th at noon and
make your voice heard!

Sunday, March 16, 2014

This is a story about a hospital in an inner city neighborhood that serves a very high population of low-income people of color. Many don’t have the resources to properly care for themselves. Unemployment is high, and many still don’t have health insurance. A significant number live in poverty, and about one third don’t speak English as their first language. Many have seen their SNAP benefits cut so they can’t provide proper nutrition for themselves and their families. Some areas around the hospital are dangerous; gangs, gun violence, drug trade and crime have proliferated.

The hospital cannot turn anyone away who comes in for treatment. Some patients follow the prescribed course of treatment and get better, but others, because of any number of reasons outside the hospital’s control, don’t. There is only so much they can do once a patient leaves, especially if the patient is homeless.

Although it has an experienced and dedicated staff and has instituted successful education, service and outreach programs that have helped unify the community, this hospital has been under state control for almost 20 years and there has been a lot of dysfunction in management. Resources have not always gotten to the areas where they were desperately needed. Repairs to the actual structure of the building have long been neglected, so parts of it are unsafe to occupy. It’s top heavy with state-appointed administrators and supervisors, so doctors and nurses don’t always have adequate supplies with which to treat patients. The state bases the success of this hospital on the overall health of the citizens in its surrounding community. But despite the fact that many staff put in a lot of extra hours to help patients and their families, they alone cannot overcome the obstacles they face. While it has gotten extra state funding in the past because it’s in a high poverty area, recently its funding has been slashed. Staff has been blamed for the ‘failure’ of the hospital and let go, caseloads have increased, and the state is putting more and more pressure on it to ‘perform’.

So, despite all the research that shows this will not work because the problem isn’t a ‘failing’ hospital, but the effects of high poverty, the state decides to shutter its doors and open a new one across town that has fewer beds and staff, and that patients have to win a lottery to enter. The community is very angry. This hospital is a cornerstone for them. It will be very difficult for some to make the trip across town, but the state doesn’t care. They have staged protests and spoken out, but their voices fall on deaf ears.

While the new hospital technically serves everyone in the city, any public hospitals that lose patients to it will also lose funding. Once there, patients may get treatment at first, but if the hospital decides their treatment is too expensive or will sully their ranking in any way, the patient is told to take their illness elsewhere.

Sound crazy? If so, then you are well aware of what’s happening to public education in our major cities. From Los Angeles to New Orleans to Chicago to Philadelphia to Newark and all points in between, public schools in high poverty neighborhoods are being labeled as failures, their staff fired, their doors shuttered because, in the eyes of education ‘reformers’, poverty doesn’t matter despite the fact that research shows this to be true. Parent, teacher, education blogger and researcher, and doctoral student, Jersey Jazzman hammered home this point when testifying recently in front of the New Jersey State Legislature’s joint committee on education about the damaging effects of Newark Superintendent Cami Anderson’s One Newark plan (at 5:25 mark):

“Yes, Newark charters are among the schools in Newark with higher proficiency rates, but they… also serve fewer free lunch eligible students. The graph shows a clear correlation between economic disadvantage and test-based outcomes—a dynamic that has been studied extensively and is not debated among education researchers. Poverty indeed does matter.” (emphasis his)

Newark’s schools have been under state control for almost 20 years. During that time—starting decade or so earlier—the rich have gotten richer, the poor poorer, and the middle class has shrunk so much that many more are now struggling to make ends meet. Parents and community members there are sick and tired of not having local control over and a say in the functioning of their community public schools. Central High School Principal Ras Baraka is running for mayor in part because of the destruction of Newark's public schools.

Closing schools and ‘turning them around’ or flipping them to charter schools is not the answer. Anthony Cody, Nationally Board Certified science teacher who taught in Oakland for almost 20 years and who blogs at Ed Week, points out the flaws in Arne Duncan’s attempts at turnaround when he was CEO of Chicago’s school system:

“The schools that have approached improvement with patience, working to build community support and teacher stability, following principles of democracy and inclusion, have made gains far beyond those being seen at the mayor's ‘Turnaround schools,’ which have been showered with resources.”

“Closing a school is not a reform. It is an admission of failure by those in charge, an acknowledgement that they do not have the knowledge and experience to evaluate the needs of the school, help the students, strengthen the staff, and provide the essential ingredients needed for a good school.” (p. 223)

The front lines of the attack on public education are in our nation’s big cities. From Los Angeles to Chicago to New Orleans to Philadelphia to Newark, parents and community members are fighting back. But that’s not enough. The death of public education will occur in part because not enough of us in the suburbs did something to stop it. So what can you—and everyone who cares about public education—do? Come to Trenton on Thursday, March 27th at noon for the New Jersey Education March and stand up for public education everywhere in New Jersey.

This is not just a rally about Newark’s schools. This is not just a rally about Newark’s citizens. This is a rally about all of us, all our schools, all our children, all our neighborhoods. Because if we let mass closings of schools, disruption of neighborhoods, and segregation of students happen in Newark, it can happen anywhere.

Martin Luther King said it best:

“In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”

Thursday, March 13, 2014

As governor, Chris Christie has done a lot of
truly awful things to the people of New Jersey in the past 5 years, but even more
egregious than promulgating the myth of ‘failing schools’, demonizing teachers
and other public employees, leaving Sandy victims sinking without a life boat, calling a Navy Seal an ‘idiot’,
telling the press to ‘take
a bat out’ on a 78-year old grandmother (who just happens to be the Senate
Majority leader), turning his back on the poor, minorities, the middle and
working classes, seniors, the LGBT community, commuters, and the homeless, surrounding
himself (there are still no dots connecting him) with
irresponsible, vindictive, selfish and, dare I say anti-semitic,
staff who would put millions of George Washington Bridge commuters at risk for juvenile, political
sport, is the report out of the New
York Times and picked up by Rachel
Maddow Tuesday that he actually gave away pieces of the World Trade Center
as political carrots to the top 20 mayors on his‘must-get’ endorsements list.

Governor Christie cares so much about winning that he’s willing to trade off pieces of hallowed
ground—a burial site—for
political favors. It's like FDR giving away pieces of The USS Arizona.

Everyone who lives in the New York/New Jersey/Connecticut metro area has a 6-degrees of separation story about
9/11. Everyone knows someone who knew someone who lost someone or saved
someone. When that anniversary rolls around, millions of emotional scabs get
ripped off. On any given day, the site of the two reflecting pools, edged with
the names of all the victims is quiet and somber. Flowers and other
mementos are left on the perfectly engraved names by friends and family who
never forget and who will never fully heal. For all intents and purposes, it’s a
sacred site for many who never got closure, whose loved one’s remains were
never found. And every piece of wreckage should be treated as if it, in some
way, is imbued with their spirit.

Ever walk past FDNY Ten House? Engine Company 10 Ladder Company 10 is right across the street from the World Trade Center site. They lost 5 members on 9/11. On the front wall of the newly re-built firehouse is this enormous bronze tribute to the fallen heroes of that day: New York's bravest. Wonder how they feel knowing that the governor of New Jersey has treated their fallen brothers and sisters with such disrespect?

Three years ago while on the
campaign trail, I stopped at a firehouse in the 16th district where,
unbeknownst to me, a piece of the World Trade Center had been presented a few
days earlier. (I'm trying to find out whether that mayor was on Christie’s list.) I walked into the
room and saw a hulking piece of twisted steel and immediately knew what it was.
That’s the kind of unconscious hold those buildings had on the tens of millions
of us who took them for granted every day. They were our beacon on the
Turnpike, guiding us home from a long day’s journey or a long day’s commute.
They were the watchtowers of the tri-state, standing guard over commuters and
travelers alike. They were our Mt. Everest and K-2. They simply were… Until
they weren’t.

I took this picture back in the '80s. It's been on my refrigerator for years.

And in a slow motion split second, they
were replaced with smoke and ash and fire, and screaming and running, and
tangled piles of twisted steel and broken glass, broken bodies and broken
hearts, fighter jets chasing after ghosts, the acrid
smell of jet fuel mixed with so much death… and all that fluttering paper.

And then came the eerie silence
that enveloped us like a tomb. With so many airports, the sound of airplanes is
like white noise to those of us living in this part of the country. When it
stopped for several days afterward, the silence was deafening.
And with it came the smoldering pile, the shattered lives, the numbness, the nation at war,
and the thousands of brave men and women who would sacrifice their lives—and
continue to do so—in a war that was started in the wrong country for the wrong
reasons.

I grew up in the shadow of the
World Trade Center. I watched it get built every day as I walked to St.
Stephen’s School along Chestnut Street in Kearny, rising higher and higher over
the New York skyline before the view of lower Manhattan was partially obscured
by the garbage dumps that claimed the meadowlands.

My very first day of teaching ever
was 9/11. I sat at the front door of the school signing students out all day.
From where I sat, I had a clear view of rt. 78, and I watched as police, fire and rescue vehicles raced east to an unknown fate. I wonder how many of those
brave men and women made it back home to hug their spouse or their children?

Governor Christie gave away pieces
of our collective souls to win political favor, to win an election. How can anyone in their
right mind call this leadership? How does Gov. Christie sleep at
night?

Excuse me, as Rachel Maddow
suggested, I have to go take a shower.

Note: I did an online search to find the list of mayors, and
emailed Matt Flegenheimer,
one of the writers of the NYT story, to see if he has a copy. As of this
posting I have not heard back.

Tuesday, March 11, 2014

Within the first 5 minutes of the
new ‘Cosmos’ series hosted by astrophysicist, Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson, he takes
a not-too-subtle jab at creationists and climate deniers when he describes the
explorers and dreamers over the course of human history who dared to imagine
what was out there in space, and how we all got here.

Imagination alone isn’t enough.
This adventure is made possible by generations of searchers, strictly adhering
to a simple set of rules:

Test ideas by experimentation and
observation.

Build on those ideas that pass the
test.

Reject the ones that fail.

Follow the evidence wherever it
leads.

Question everything.

He might as well have been talking
about the education community, which for over a decade has been at the mercy of
the ‘reformy’ Inquisitors who just refuse to accept the mountains of research
and evidence that disclaim their ideology because it all leads back to one
thing: poverty. But poverty is messy, and they can’t profit from it. But they
can make a profit from charter schools, merit pay, union busting, mass firings
of teachers, SGOs, SGPs, standardized testing, and all the other garbage they
keep throwing at teachers and students.

But something very interesting is
happening, something they probably didn’t expect: parents, teachers, community
leaders and students from coast to coast are fighting back because the reforms
are archaic and outright damaging to students, the teaching profession and
public education. And the fight is alive and well here in the Garden State. We
are blessed to have the likes of Blue Jersey’s own, Jersey Jazzman, Rutgers Graduate
School of Education Professor, Dr.
Bruce Baker, suburban-mom-turned-education-activist, Darcie Cimarusti, aka Mother Crusader, and retired
Star Ledger reporter, Bob Braun, among
the many New Jersey bloggers reporting from the front lines (because you won’t
find much coverage in the mainstream news).

‘The Fight’—as I like to call
it—was on full display last Wednesday in Trenton. For hours, a standing room
only crowd of educators, parents and concerned citizens testified in front of
the New Jersey State Board of Education about the horrendous physical,
emotional and financial effects of education ‘reform’ on one of the best public
school systems in the nation. I documented much of the testimony here
and here.
NJEA gave each board member a binder full of over 1,000 letters from educators
all over the state detailing their uphill battles against draconian budget
cuts, stifling standards and endless, mindless test prep. The testimony was
moving: some speakers cried, others yelled, some spoke softly but carried a big
stick, one brought pictures of her own two children for the board to see who is
really being affected. These were not greedy teachers or union thugs. They were
passionate, articulate, well-educated members of the overall community that
supports public education.

Today, ‘the fight’ takes center
stage in Trenton once again, as the legislature’s Joint Committee on Public
Schools hosts a hearing
on Superintendent Cami Anderson’s controversial One
Newark plan which, in addition to closing schools, seeks an end run around
the landmark TEACHNJ law (aka ‘tenure reform’) so she can fire veteran
educators to hire more low-wage, low-skilled Teach for America recruits,
because you know, anyone can be a teacher in 5 weeks! I’m surprised I haven’t
seen an infomercial yet. “For just 3 easy payments of $19.95 you too can pad
your resume—er, teach for a couple of years in a really challenging school
district because experienced educators are so overrated (and overpaid)—before
moving on to that high-paying white collar executive career you’ve always
dreamed of!”

The Good Ship Ed Reform has run
aground in Port Newark. It’s listing to port and it’s taking on water.
Christie’s poll numbers are tanking (and he’s been mum on all the craziness in
Newark), Cerf is off to Amplify—you
know, that company he has no idea as to whether they have contracts in New
Jersey—and Cami’s gone into hiding.
We still don’t know if she or anyone else from her staff will be at today’s
hearing.

But we do know this: it should be
filled with a whole lot of people with a whole lot of facts to disprove One
Newark. Senator Ron Rice (D-Essex) is all over this; he’s sponsored legislation
that would include public input on any school closings. And Senate Education
Committee Chair and architect of the TEACHNJ law, Teresa Ruiz (D-Essex), is not
happy that Anderson wants to play fast and loose with the law. Her resolution
objecting to the waiver passed both the Senate and the Assembly.

I’m really hoping that the
confluence of all these events is a sign that the planets will align; that
fact—not fiction—will once again begin to drive education policy; and that the
education reform inquisition will be burned at the stake.

It would be this funny if it weren't so true.

I leave you with this quote from
last Wednesday:

“This whole process was started on
a false assumption. New Jersey does not have failing schools.”

We have too high a concentration of
students living in poverty in our large urban areas.

Sunday, March 9, 2014

Some of the New Jersey educators who testified at the State Board of Ed meeting on March 5th

Yesterday’s post focused on written testimony and letters
that people submitted to the State Board of Ed. Today’s quotes are based on
notes I took while people were testifying. I tried to live Tweet, but Wi-Fi/cell
service is lousy at the board offices—at least if you have AT&T.

The two board members who were assigned to hear testimony in
our room were Edie Fulton and Jack Fornaro. Edie is a retired educator and past
president of NJEA, so she knows first hand what educators are going through.
Jack has a long career in both the public and private sectors. Both were very engaged. They did not sit stone-faced like many
local board of ed members do; they asked questions and made comments. They
nodded in agreement and understanding.

And as for the title of this blog post? Yes, indeed, that test has to be bagged and tagged. Unbelievable.

From a special education teacher:

Thank you for looking over the light reading our members
have sent you (the binders full of letters)… Why are we using an assessment
that’s been proven not to work (SGOs/SGPs)? … There aren’t allowable
accommodations for brain-injured children to take standardized tests… If a
child refuses to take the test, is that an accurate reflection of the student’s
and teacher’s abilities? … If a child [vomits on a test], SOMEBODY has to bag that test
and send it to the state.

From a parent advocate:

Why are the citizens of New Jersey so disrespected?
(complaining about the board’s unresponsiveness to her inquiries) … Has the
CCSS been internationally benchmarked? … The US leads the world in scientific
papers published and Nobel Prizes won. Is our education system so bad?

On the massive amounts of test prep time and the
technological failures experienced:

Precious learning time is being stolen from our students…
Many technology problems with Chrome Books… Students can’t annotate text on
them, yet that’s how we teach them to decode text… Is it fair to base my SGP on
a test that’s not being administered under optimal conditions?

Deborah Smith Gregory from the NAACP talking about Cami
Anderson’s recent presentation to the State BOE, and the conditions in Newark
in general:

Why didn’t any of you ask her questions?

She did not mention English language learners or special needs students in her presentation.

You didn’t ask any questions about the TFA staff hired on top of advanced teachers in the ‘holding pool’.

We demanded Cami not be renewed, but she was, with a $50,000 bonus for minor results in some schools and declining results in her ‘turn-around’ schools.

We demand the state investigate the money being spent in Newark.

Anderson is derelict and deleterious and she must go.

Anderson treats us like a colony of slaves!

From a classroom teacher who is also a local association
president:

This whole process was started on a false assumption. New Jersey does not have failing schools… Micromanagement does not lead to better student achievement… Despite all this, things are not getting better in schools. Teachers are leaving because they can no longer do this to children… I am frequently asked:

Can they fire me if I’m not at where I should be in my lesson plans?

Can I still hatch chicks in the classroom?

Can I still paint with my students?

Can I still sing with my students?

Edie Fulton comments:

We don’t have the power to slow down PARCC. (Fornaro says it
has to come from the state legislature.) Lesson plans are for subs. So much of what we (teachers) can
do is spur of the moment.

(If only that were still true.)

From a member of the New
Jersey Association of Colleges for Teacher Education:

There is no research to indicate that raising the minimum
GPA requirement for entry into a teaching school from 2.5 to 3.0 is good.

Edie:

What else is new?

Speaker continues:

If that goes through, are we breaking a contract with
applicants? ... Teachers are leaving the profession, but they sure don’t want
to enter it… Too much testing (Speaker mentioned that there is too much testing
of our education majors. They now have to pass the PRAXIS 1 & 2. It’s
becoming too expensive.)… If we are going to have higher standards, they should
be higher for everyone (wink, wink to TFA)

On yet more testing:

One teacher spoke about her district administering the MAP
(Measure of Academic Progress) test. This is the test that many Seattle
teachers refused
to administer because the students don’t take it seriously, it’s flawed,
and it’s being used to evaluate teachers—a purpose for which it’s not intended.
She also spoke about tech staff fixing tech glitches while her class was trying to take tests on Chrome books—including
re-booting machines and fiddling with student login info!

At this point someone in the other room is
testifying—yelling so loudly they are almost drowning out the speakers in our
room. Turns out is was Deborah Jackson, a parent activist from Newark. Loud applause when she was done. Edie joked that our room has to do better when applauding for our speakers.

From a retired teacher and representative of the Alumni
Association of South Side High School in Newark:

More than one person is calling for an investigation into
Cami Anderson’s financial dealings in Newark… She is moving Newark Vocational
School—which has a great culinary arts program—to another building so central
office can take over that building. The new building has no facilities to
accommodate the culinary arts program.
On Anderson’s One Newark
Plan:

Where are the objectives for learning and moving our students forward?

Where is the long-range goal?

Where are the timeline and benchmarks?

More on technology:

We are assessing our students’ technology skills—not their
knowledge of math and language arts!

A teacher on the new evaluation system:

I want to live in the 4’s (Note: under the new evaluation
system, in which teachers are assessed on a 1-4 scale, we have been told to
‘live in the 3’s and vacation in the 4’s”.)… Chokes up as he asks how to put a
number on a teacher who teaches kids to support aging Vietnam veterans?

A middle school special education teacher on testing her
students:

I had to administer 138 tests in 4 days to 69 students. I
felt like I couldn’t breathe… Their weeks are filled with tests… I surveyed
them about how they felt about it all. They responded: unnecessary, scared,
nervous, useless, stressed… Evaluations are subjective!

The next step in this process is to make sure our elected
officials in Trenton hear these and other stories—your stories. They have the power to slow down the implementation
of PARCC. They have the power to ensure that TEACHNJ is properly implemented.
Parents and community members also need to learn more about what’s happening in
their local schools. Most parents have no idea what’s coming
next year with PARCC. They have no idea how difficult this new test is, nor do
they know what happened in New York last year as test
scores plummeted. Teachers in my district recently took sample PARCC tests
and were shocked at how difficult they were.

Educators, if you have not already done so, please send your
letter to the State Board of Education, PO Box 500, Trenton, NJ. 08608, and
send me a copy, too. I’ll continue to compile and post them in batches. And don’t
forget to contact your state representatives and demand they step in and stop
this madness. Their contact info is here.

Saturday, March 8, 2014

Along with approximately 50 other education professionals
from the New Jersey Education Association, members of the Newark Teachers Union
(AFT-NJ), and parents and other concerned citizens, I attended a lobby day at
the State Board of Education last Wednesday—Chris Cerf’s last day as state
education commissioner.

In certain ways it was like a funeral. While passionate,
articulate, well-educated speakers delivered anecdotes of excellence in teaching,
and the joy, inspiration and enthusiasm that go along with it, there were many
harrowing, absurd, and truly heartbreaking stories of what public education has devolved
into under Cerf’s fiefdom.

NJEA delivered a binder to each board member filled with
over 1,000 letters from teachers across the state. Many educators brought more
letters with them from co-workers who couldn’t attend. Two rooms were set up
for testimony. I was assigned to the smaller of the two where 36 speakers
had registered. At 5 minutes each, they were easily looking at 3 hours of
testimony.

Binders full of letters

The following are quotes pulled from copies of testimony and/or letters. They are posted anonymously because, contrary to popular belief, tenure
does not mean a job for life. Teachers can and do get targeted by
administrators with an ax to grind. Almost every person who sent me their
testimony asked me not to use their name. Reading through all the text has been emotionally draining.

From a So. Brunswick teacher on how the new ranking system
unfairly targets low income students and students with disabilities:

“South Brunswick was not too long ago considered a ‘lighthouse’
district by the state of NJ - a beacon, an example for other districts to
follow. I'm not sure the business model allows for any district to be
progressive in a way that would earn a distinction of ‘lighthouse’ any longer
and that scares me.

“This ‘lighthouse district’ is now a district with three focus
schools? South Brunswick’s middle schools earned the distinction of focus
school due to their ‘too large’ discrepancy between the highest (Asian) and two
lowest (special education and economically disadvantaged) performing
subgroups.”

From a teacher in a state-takeover district:

“I remembered the countless hours that I had spent in graduate
school, watching how good evaluations are supposed to be conducted and began to
feel somewhat uneasy about what was to come because what was being proposed
looked nothing like what I was taught in graduate school. Evaluations weren't
supposed to be ‘gotcha moments.”

From a math teacher:

“I am choosing not to believe that the collateral consequences being suffered are actually intended, but rather in the mission you are aiming to achieve through these changes…You should know that it’s working, all of it. Your educators – a significant, influential portion of them – are becoming discouraged… You are forcing them to change their approach in the classroom and even reconsider their career in public education. That’s great! However, you’re also affecting the best, and running the risk of alienating those who may become your best. Rational people understand two things about our jobs right now: substantive changes take patience; trends lead to expected outcomes. What we don’t understand is why you’re using napalm to cut the grass… Why is everyone treated as a failure? We strive not to do that in your classrooms. We differentiate our instruction so higher learners sail beyond the basics and slower learners aren’t anchors. Why shouldn’t differentiated evaluation apply to the differentiators?... the common words and phrases I hear encompassing this collective school year and the years preceding it – regardless of age, teaching level, subject or district – are ‘drowning’, ‘uncertainty’, ‘stressed’, ‘disconnected’, ‘retirement’.

“Our administrators – confused and strapped for time – come to school every day knowing that, no matter how well they manage their time, they willfail to live up to the anything-but-static responsibilities and requirements imposed upon them. Observations that take multiple hours to produce have been jumbled and discarded within the Teachscape program our districts pay numerous taxpayer dollars for… Did you expect your administrators to become sterilized by your wave of changes?

“Our professional worth is determined, not by our educational credentials or the unmeasurable affect we have, daily, on your students, but by a number generated from an “educational responsibility checklist” by a mentally-taxed observer within a 20 minute snippet of time. If you saw what this was doing to your veterans – the ones who’ve honed and perfected their craft daily over a career – you would be “sad and disappointed,” said more than one colleague.

“Is public education creeping toward privatization because public education is the untapped oil-well of America’s fading manifest destiny?

“If our education system is going to have any substantive impact on our nation's youth, it is going to have to nurture thinkers, not build fact robots who could squash Ken Jennings in Jeopardy but who couldn’t reason their way past a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.”

From a special education teacher in a former Abbott District:

“The one-size-fits-all approach to teacher evaluation, SGO's, SGP's, and PARCC testing are in direct opposition to making accommodations to suit the needs of children in not only these classes, but in inclusion and general education classes as well in urban school districts. To say that many children in urban classrooms don't have any type academic support outside of school is a gross understatement. Most live in low-income households, with daily stressors that adults would find hard to handle. These children are expected to come to school and learn even though there have been massive cuts in mental health services for all except those who have it specified in their IEP's. How is that factored in on the PARCC? Who will pay for this? The children, of course, when dedicated teachers are judged only by test scores, and decide to leave the field of education in frustration.”

From another special education teacher/art therapist in a former Abbott District:

"Many questions have been asked by teachers regarding specific problems in with the evaluation system, SGOs, etc. and little provided in response. Even supervisors do not have answers for us. Precious hours have been spent on paperwork that has no validity. The collection of this information is flawed and questions have not been answered. However, the machine continues to turn with little consideration for humanity. Where is the research data that proves that these reforms are in fact valid and reliable?"

From a mom/teacher:

“Apparently, many of the new
initiatives driving these changes are tied to corporate entities. Parents question
the motives behind the piloting and purchasing of costly, corporate kits,
especially in vulnerable districts. What can you tell us about the recent sale
of Newark’s Eighteenth Avenue School, which Senator Rice has alleged to be
illegal? Or the $2.3 million sale of products from Amplify, the current
employer of our former commissioner of education? Other corporate stakeholders,
like Teach For America, only see dollar signs in the eyes of our children. In
contrast, I thank God every day for my children’s teachers.”

A teacher reflects on John
Dewey’s vision of Experiential Education:

“We have become, in many instances, no longer teachers, but
simply an entity to deliver information on which children will be tested.
Despite the rhetoric of the PARCC movement, it appears that we are moving
backwards – to the classroom that Dewey argued against.”

A fourth grade teacher on
how testing is affecting students’ health:

“I used to teach purely for joy; now I find my overriding
purpose is to keep a job… We force-feed concepts to young children who are
developmentally not ready or equipped to analyze and synthesize what is asked
of them. Many of the creative projects that made learning fun have fallen by
the wayside. I have 4th grade students who no longer want to come to
school, and we are resorting to teaching breathing and visualization techniques
to lessen their performance and test-taking anxiety. All the while we assess,
assess, assess, gather data, and report on what I already know about my
students.”

On ‘data collection’:

“Time that used to be spent teaching is now used to assess
and collect data. I have missed at least 20 days of instruction due to testing
students this year. While we continue to raise expectations for our students,
we do not give teachers time to help students meet these expectations.”

On the demoralizing of educators:

“Teachers have been made to feel very small when it comes to
standardized testing. If our students don’t do well, it must mean we’re
horrible teachers and the blame is put on us. And some of the directions for
teachers are insulting. For example, we have to sign a document that states we
will not sleep during testing. What teacher would ever sleep while giving a
test, let alone a state-mandated test! I wish [teachers] could have more say in
making the decisions on how to best assess our students, as we have their best
interests in mind.”

A special education teacher feels she is failing her
students:

“I am spending more and more time preparing my students for and
giving them assessments which are testing skills well above their ability. They
look to me for the guidance and support they need when in my room and I cannot
help them. Watching them feel so defeated has been frustrating to say the
least! I feel I have let them down and they feel they can no longer count on
me.”

Another special education teacher puts it simply:

“Please help us get back to the task of ‘teaching our students
the love of learning’ and not simply ‘teaching to the test.’”

A 4th grade teacher is at a loss for words:

“I am at a loss for words as to how to describe my experience
teaching this year.When I began
teaching, I knew exactly why I chose this profession.I woke up each day with a zeal and enthusiasm that only a
fellow teacher would understand… This has changed tremendously in the past
year… The excessive evaluations, assessments, SGOs, SGPs and standardized
testing have made the students and teachers feel a stress that cannot be
explained in a letter.”

On the effect of standardized testing on future generations
of students:

“We are stifling creativity in both the teachers and the
student, and we are creating an educational system that will, instead of
raising the bar of learning, lower it. We are taking away both the desire and
the ability of the next generation of children to be independent thinkers.”

A teacher laments he will never be a “Highly Effective
Teacher” under the AchieveNJ program:

"The Achieve NJ program is set up to reward one thing: standardized
teaching, plain and simple. Achieve NJ favors canned lessons and pre-packaged
approaches that were never meant to be what teaching was about. Achieve NJ,
with its ‘data-driven’ approach, seeks to quantify what simply can’t be
converted into numbers: high quality teaching. Oh, I understand there’s a
science to teaching, but the scientific approach means that anyone with a
heartbeat could be placed in front of a classroom and succeed in delivering
canned instructional material to those present. But, how many of those same
people could really inspire children?

"You wonder why the media tells us that America (not New Jersey
mind you) is falling behind in education? It’s because the things that always
made America great have been sucked out of our classrooms by Pearson-created
curricula and Amplify-sponsored standardized testing: vision and innovation. You
see, a master teacher, a teacher who is gifted in the art of teaching has a
vision of how far his students can go and can help them to achieve that vision.
A master teacher realizes that the most successful lessons are the ones that
were developed in his or her own mind and heart. There’s no place and certainly
no time left for innovation in the Achieve NJ program.”

A veteran teacher reflects on what new teachers have to look
forward to:

“Young students entering the field of education are given a
dose of reality: if you make this a life-long career, the respect of the
existing culture is not there for you.”

An art teacher on the difference between the corporate and
the education worlds:

“Education is not a business; we work with children of various
abilities and personalities, not a product, but human beings. This evaluation
process is not helpful, but is damaging to morale and effectiveness of
teachers.”

From a first grade teacher on the inappropriateness of
standardized testing for young learners:

“It is not the goal of teachers to emphasize testing in the
early elementary years… Research shows that the ‘gift of time’ is extremely
valuable to young children. The SGO does not address the maturation of young
students.”

A PE teacher on the use of standardized evaluation systems
across subject areas:

“Teachers should not be evaluated with one type of evaluation.
You can’t use the same format for a classroom teacher and then go see a PE
class or an art or music class and expect the same. The classes are totally
different and therefore need to have a different way to evaluate that teacher.”

Feeling overwhelmed:

“I am an experienced teacher who is overwhelmed by trying to
implement everything I am expected to do.”

A PE teacher on how CCSS and PARCC are preventing her from
fulfilling her legally required duties:

“As a result of the CCSS and PARCC testing our school has had
to move to a 6-day schedule, so our students no longer participate in the 150 minutes of physical education and
health every week as required by the state!”

A school librarian on the devastating effects of PARCC and
CCSS on her library and curriculum:

“In order for my district to meet the technology requirements
to administer the PARCC, over $400 thousand has been spent on Chrome books and
infrastructure support for our district. Those unfunded mandates have created
budget issues that directly affect all students. My library budget… is now
$8,000 LESS than [it was] in 1991.”

My thoughts on the ‘brain drain’ this is causing:

"In addition to being a teacher, I’m also the vice president of my
local education association, so I hear it all. My colleagues are overwhelmed
and under trained. They are burned out, stressed out, and many are simply
giving up and retiring early. With every veteran teacher who says to me, 'You
know, Marie, I was going to stay another few years, but I just can’t take it
anymore', we lose decades of experience. It’s bad enough to do this to adults,
but realize that what you do to us, you ultimately do to the children of this
state. If we are stressed, they are, too. This is not good for the future of New
Jersey."